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BACK TO THE FUTURE: IMMIGRATION AND GUNS – Jennifer Steinhauer reports for the New York Times: “As Congress and the White House prepare to refight two epic policy battles from the past — a new agenda to stem gun violence and another to address the nation’s heavily criticized immigration system — political, demographic and economic shifts are propelling immigration changes forward as forcefully as they are pulling lawmakers away on guns. Bruised by successive presidential defeats in which Hispanic voters played a significant role, Republicans are eager to join in producing legislation that would make it easier for people to immigrate to the United States or stay here in some cases if they entered illegally. The cause has been helped by years of a sputtering economy, which has reduced the flow of illegal immigrants, and thus the red hot anger directed at them, as well as increased border security.

-- “But while Republicans are drawing back from their outspoken stance on immigration, as well as opposition to gay marriage and other social issues, they have found gun rights a secure policy to defend, often with the help of Democrats from conservative states, and are almost certain to oppose any agenda beyond changes to background checks for gun owners. The dynamic in Washington mirrors the sentiment back home for many lawmakers. ‘We are getting closer to a balanced approach,’ said Chad Connelly, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, about immigration. ‘We got spanked in November, and I think what Republicans are looking for is something that enforces border security while making it easier to come here.’ Changes to gun laws, he said, have no such support. ‘They will have a rough row to hoe,’ he said. ‘I have some donors who own gun stores who said they can’t keep stuff in the store.’” http://nyti.ms/Wxs5NY

HAPPENING AT 10 A.M. -- The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing titled: “What Should America Do About Gun Violence?” Hart 216. Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was nearly killed in a shooting in Tucson two years ago, is expected to testify.

CHAIRMAN PATRICK LEAHY previews his opening statement in the Rutland Herald: “On Dec. 14, America’s heart was broken when 20 young children and six dedicated educators were murdered. This is the first Judiciary Committee hearing of the 113th Congress. I ask all assembled here today to join in the discussion as part of a collective effort to find solutions to help ensure that no family, no school, and no community ever has to endure such a grievous tragedy again. We must come together today as Americans seeking common cause. Let us forego sloganeering, demagoguery and partisan recriminations. This is too important for all that. We all abhor the recent tragedies — in just the last two years — in an elementary school in Connecticut, in a movie theater in Colorado, in a sacred place of worship in Wisconsin, and in front of a shopping mall in Arizona.

-- “Americans are looking to us for solutions and for action. This committee is a focal point for that process. I have introduced a measure to provide law enforcement agencies with stronger tools against illegal gun trafficking. Others have proposed restrictions on military-style weapons and the size of ammunition clips. Others have proposed modifications to the background check systems to keep guns out of the wrong hands, while not unnecessarily burdening law-abiding citizens. …

-- “At the outset of this hearing, I note that the Second Amendment is secure and will remain secure and protected. In two recent cases, the Supreme Court has confirmed that the Second Amendment, like other aspects of our Bill of Rights, secures a fundamental individual right. Americans have the right to self-defense and to have guns in their homes to protect their families. No one can or will take those rights or our guns away. Second Amendment rights are the foundation on which our discussion rests. They are not at risk. But lives are at risk when responsible people fail to stand up for laws that will keep guns out of the hands of those who will use them to commit mass murder.

-- “As a responsible gun owner and someone who cherishes all of our constitutional rights; as a senator who has sworn an oath to uphold those rights; as a father and grandfather; and as a former prosecutor who has seen the results of gun violence firsthand, I undertake these efforts with hope that this hearing can build consensus around commonsense solutions. Previous measures to close the gun show loophole or to improve the background check system have been bipartisan. I hope in this new Congress, further improvements will also become bipartisan.” http://bit.ly/VVnpQw

-- POLITICO’s Ginger Gibson and John Bresnahan write that the hearing promises to be incendiary: “But witnesses like Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, won’t necessarily be the only source of sparks. The 18 members of the panel are some of the most partisan, staunchly divided lawmakers in the Senate on the key issues facing them: gun control and immigration. The panel features dyed-in-the-wool liberals like Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Chuck Schumer of New York — both of whom are pushing an assault weapons ban — and red meat conservatives like Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas and Jeff Sessions of Alabama. So even with the country clamoring for compromise, the lines in the committee have already been mostly drawn in the sand.” http://politi.co/UBANKB

SENATE CONFIRMS KERRY FOR STATE DEPT. – Seung Min Kim reports for POLITICO: “Sen. John Kerry was easily confirmed by the Senate Tuesday to become the next secretary of state, installing the first key member of President Barack Obama’s national security team in his second term. The vote was 94-3, with Kerry voting present. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Texas Republicans John Cornyn and Ted Cruz voted no. The swift confirmation was expected; the longtime Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee has won plaudits from both Democrats and Republicans, and fellow senators had given no indication that Kerry’s confirmation would be a problem. Earlier Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Kerry has chaired, also unanimously advanced his nomination. … Kerry was nominated by Obama in December to replace outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. …

-- “A spokesman for Cornyn said he voted no because Kerry ‘has a long history of liberal positions that are not consistent with a majority of Texans.’ ‘After listening to the nomination hearing, Sen. Cornyn could not support Sen. Kerry’s nomination,’ spokesman Drew Brandewie said.” http://politi.co/14rMgjN

POLITICO FLASHBACK – Cornyn could face a primary challenge from the right and has been aligning himself with Cruz, the tea party freshman from his state, Manu Raju reported earlier this month: http://politi.co/13tH6mO

MASSACHUSETTS GOV. DEVAL PATRICK is expected to name an interim senator to replace Kerry Wednesday. In a special election in June, voters will pick a successor to fill out the rest of Kerry’s term. The special primary is set for April.

BREAKING: FBI RAIDS OFFICES OF DOCTOR LINKED TO MENENDEZ -- Marc Caputo, Jay Weaver and Scott Hiaasen report for the Miami Herald – “FBI agents late Tuesday night raided the West Palm Beach business of an eye doctor suspected of providing free trips and even underage Dominican Republic prostitutes to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. — who has denied what he calls the ‘fallacious allegations.’ Agents gathered at the medical-office complex of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a contributor to Menendez and other prominent politicians, to start hauling away potential evidence in several vans. The investigation is believed to be focusing on Melgen’s finances and the allegations about Menendez’s trips and contact with prostitutes. A spokesman for Menendez could not be reached for comment, nor could Melgen.

-- Despite financial problems, “Melgen and his family have contributed at least $357,000 to candidates and committees since 1998, according to Florida and federal campaign records. Of that, the Melgens have contributed about 9 percent to Menendez’s federal campaigns. Melgen also owns a private CL-600 Challenger plane through one of his West Palm Beach-based companies, and frequently flies between South Florida and Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic, where he is from. Menendez has flown on the plane at least once, his office has said, when he was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2009 to 2011, when the Melgens contributed about $60,400 to the group. A spokeswoman had previously said that Menendez and Melgen are longtime friends and said the senator did nothing improper.

-- “Melgen was first linked to Menendez just before the November elections, when the conservative Daily Caller website interviewed two alleged prostitutes who said they had relations with the New Jersey Democrat at Melgen’s Dominican Republic mansion in Casa de Campo. After the election, the news died down. But then, days before Menendez was about to start leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as chairman, reporters started receiving a 58-page dossier of emails between a Miami FBI agent and a tipster who claimed that some of the prostitutes had been underage. ‘I’m not going to respond to the fallacious allegations of your story,’ Menendez told the Daily Caller on Monday when a reporter caught up with him on a train in Washington. …

-- “The FBI would not comment on the emails, and the agent, Regino Chavez, did not return calls or emails. But sources familiar with the investigation told The Miami Herald that the emails are real.” http://hrld.us/YhUXJf

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GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING, JANUARY 30, 2013, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com. If you don't already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.

My new followers include but are not limited to ‏@CraigOrn and @ronduprat.

TODAY IN CONGRESS – The House is out this week. The Senate is in at 9:30 a.m. with Sen. John Kerry, the incoming secretary of State, giving his farewell address at 2:30 p.m. The Senate hopes to complete pass the legislation to hike the debt limit before the end of the week.

COCHRAN IS FIRST REPUBLICAN TO BACK HAGEL – Roll Call’s Frank Oliveri and Meghan Scully note in their state of play piece: Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel “has won the backing of at least one Republican senator, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the ranking member on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, who said Tuesday that he plans to vote for confirmation.” http://bit.ly/YhR0UR

-- Democrats, none of whom have vowed to oppose the Hagel nomination, tell Huddle that Cochran’s pledge is a sign the former Nebraska GOP senator is in good shape to win confirmation.

Washington Post, A1 lead, “No deal in sight to stop sequester,” By Lori Montgomery: “Less than a month after averting one fiscal crisis, Washington began bracing Tuesday for another, as lawmakers in both parties predicted that deep, across-the-board spending cuts would probably hit the Pentagon and other federal agencies on March 1. An array of proposals are in the works to delay or replace the cuts. But party leaders say they see no clear path to compromise, particularly given a growing sentiment among Republicans to pocket the cuts and move on to larger battles over health and retirement spending. Adding to the sense of inevitability is the belief that the cuts, known as the sequester, would improve the government’s bottom line without devastating the broader economy. Though the cuts would hamper economic growth, especially in the Washington region, the forecast is far less dire than with other recent fiscal deadlines, and financial markets are not pressing Washington to act.

--“Cuts to the military and the defense industry remain politically problematic. But Tuesday, even some of the Pentagon’s most fervent champions seemed resigned to the likelihood that the cuts would be permitted to kick in, at least temporarily. ‘I think it’s more likely to happen. And I’m ashamed of the Congress, I’m ashamed of the president, and I’m ashamed of being in this body, quite frankly,’ said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), an Air Force Reservist who has been working for months to develop a bipartisan plan to protect the Pentagon. ‘How do you go to somebody in the military who’s been deployed four or five times . . . and say, ‘For your good work over the last decade, we’re going to ruin the military; we’re going to make it harder for you to have the equipment you need to fight, and we’re going to reduce benefits to your family?’ ’ he said.” http://wapo.st/X7NoSG

OBAMA KICKS OFF IMMIGRATION PUSH – In Las Vegas, Christi Parsons and Kathleen Hennessey write on A1 of the L.A. Times: “President Obama flew to this once-red state, turned blue largely by the votes of Latinos, to launch an effort to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. But in doing so, he carefully avoided ultimatums that might disrupt bipartisan talks underway in the Senate and House. Even as Tuesday's venue in Nevada dramatized the political shifts that have strengthened Obama's hand in the immigration debate, he struck a cooperative note. He praised the progress in the Senate, saying proposals so far were ‘very much in line’ with his own principles, and he sought to emphasize common ground on an issue that has confounded Congress repeatedly for more than a decade. ‘I'm here today because the time has come for common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform. Now's the time,’ the president said as a boisterous crowd began to chant, ‘Si se puede.’ … Obama did insist that if Congress failed to move forward ‘in a timely fashion,’ he would send up a bill and insist that lawmakers vote on it immediately.”http://lat.ms/117nkPz

GOP PITFALLS ALREADY EMERGING – Manu Raju and Kate Nocera report: “Senior Senate Republicans such as Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Richard Shelby of Alabama, with influential junior GOP senators such as Ted Cruz of Texas, are wary of embracing the sprawling bipartisan plan to revamp the nation’s immigration laws and provide a pathway to citizenship for the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants. Some on the right, like Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and David Vitter of Louisiana, are emerging as outspoken critics of the plan because of what they see as ‘amnesty’ to lawbreakers. And the top two Senate Republican leaders, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John Cornyn of Texas, who both voted against the failed comprehensive immigration bill in 2007, are reacting cautiously to the latest effort. They may eventually be limited on what they can support, given their electoral pressures back home and the possibility of facing primary challenges in 2014. ‘That’s obviously very controversial,’ Cornyn told POLITICO when asked about the pathway to citizenship proposal. ‘And that’s one of the things that’s going to be at the center of the debate. But we’ll see how much the country has moved since 2007 and where people are.’” http://politi.co/VTM9Zh

NO PAY FOR CONGRESS? FEW FEEL THE PINCH – Jeremy Peters reports for the NYT: “In principle, it sounds self-sacrificing, even noble: Congress swears off collecting its paychecks until it passes a budget. But behind the ‘no budget, no pay’ proposal, which the House passed last week when it voted to temporarily extend the debt limit, is also a basic reality: many of those who support the concept are so wealthy that their Congressional paychecks represent little more than a rounding error. Take Representative Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican who led the charge on the measure in the House. He has a net worth between $3.8 million and $9.7 million, according to an analysis of his most recent financial disclosure by the Center for Responsive Politics. That is not exactly a fortune befitting a Rockefeller or a Kennedy, but it is more than enough to cushion any discomfort he might feel from missing a few paydays. Many of the other lawmakers who have championed ‘no budget, no pay,’ both Republicans and Democrats, are similarly wealthy. …

-- “As many ordinary Americans have struggled to get by in recent years, members of Congress were largely insulated from the economic downturn, based on their net worth. The median net worth of American households is $66,740, while for the 535 members of Congress it is about $966,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Congressional lawmakers earn at least $174,000 a year.” http://nyti.ms/WeZU77

TUESDAY’S TRIVIA WINNER – Jon Deuser was first to correctly answer that Ernest “Fritz” Hollings holds the record for serving the longest as a state’s junior senator. He served alongside South Carolina’s senior senator, Strom Thurmond, for 36 years.

TODAY’S TRIVIA – Wyeth Ruthven has a related question: Sens. Fritz Hollings and Strom Thurmond never ran against each other, but one man beat both of them. Name the candidate. First to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at swong@politico.com.

GET HUDDLE emailed to your Blackberry, iPhone or other mobile device each morning. Just enter your email address where it says “Sign Up.” http://www.politico.com/huddle/

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